THE BULLY WILL CONTINUE BULLYING UNTIL PUNCHED IN THE FACE:
The origin of these is China
CCP-connected researchers just got caught smuggling wheat blight into the Upper Midwest, where most of our wheat is grown, in an act of agroterrorism
They’ve also released a bug that killed 95% of the Florida orange groves
This is what… https://t.co/hPWtHLxnWP pic.twitter.com/aOCtyrLD2u
— Will Tanner (@Will_Tanner_1) July 17, 2025
KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Colbert’s Tedious Reign as the Anti-Carson Is Coming to an End. “Contrary to the myth that has grown about Carson over the years, he actually did used to do political jokes. A lot of them, actually. He just spread them around both sides, and he never let on which party he preferred. He wanted to appeal to the entire country. Colbert wants to make sure that conservatives know that he hates us. He’s very good at that, by the way.”
HMM: Trump to open 401k accounts to private market in bombshell move that could see savings skyrocket.
Trump is expected to announce the new policy soon, but precise details are being kept tightly under wraps and are still subject to change, the Wall Street Journal reported.
The executive order is expected to instruct the Labor Department to begin working with the Securities and Exchange Commission on guidance for employers and plan administrators.
It would represent a huge victory for the private equity industry, which has long been lobbying to gain access to workers’ 401k plans, which currently is worth about $12.5 trillion.
These portfolios have long been primarily comprised of stocks and bonds, largely because they carry less risk than other forms of investment.
Private markets would give accountholders greater opportunity for growth and long-term rewards, allowing investors to capitalize on private equity, venture capital, real estate and hedge funds which aren’t on public exchanges.
But there are also major risks associated with private equity investments.
More choice for investors is always a good thing, but caveat emptor always applies, too.
ICYMI, IT’S MY THURSDAY ESSAY FOR VIP SUBSCRIBERS: Migration Doomed the European Project
NOTHING TO SEE HERE, MOVE ALONG:
Remember that woman who Democrats and the media claimed was kidnapped from a parking lot by ICE, shoved into an unmarked car, held in a building, starved, to force her to self-deport???
Turns out she staged the entire “kidnapping”
She’s now facing criminal charges for… pic.twitter.com/QG7NrKWkWA
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) July 17, 2025
VDH: The World Woke Up.
The unthinkable has become the banal.
Take illegal immigration—remember the 10,000 daily illegal entries under Biden?
Recall the only solution was supposedly “comprehensive immigration reform”—a euphemism for mass amnesties.
Now, there is no such thing as daily new illegal immigration.
It simply disappeared with common-sense enforcement of existing immigration laws—and a new president.
How about the 40,000-50,000 shortfall in military recruitment?
Remember all the causes that the generals cited for their inability to enlist soldiers: generational gangs, obesity, drugs, and stiff competition with private industry?
And now?
In just six months, recruitment targets are already met; the issue is mostly moot.
Why? The new Pentagon flipped the old, canceling its racist DEI programs and assuring the rural, middle-class Americans—especially white males—that they were not systemically racist after all.
Instead, they were reinvited to enlist as the critical combat cohort who died at twice their demographic share in Iraq and Afghanistan.
How about the “end of the NATO crisis,” supposedly brought on by a bullying U.S.?
Now the vast majority of NATO members have met their pledges to spend two percent of GDP on defense, which will soon increase to five percent.
Iconic neutrals like Sweden and Finland have become frontline NATO nations, arming to the teeth. The smiling NATO Secretary-General even called Trump the “daddy” of the alliance.
Much more at the link.
Trump delivered bigly in his first six months with much more to come. Anyone obsessed with the Epstein “list” over all those accomplishments might lack perspective.
LIVING HISTORY: Disneyland’s Nearly Disastrous Opening: 70 Years Ago Today.
IT’S MY THURSDAY ESSAY FOR VIP SUBSCRIBERS: Migration Doomed the European Project.
DISPATCHES FROM THE BLUE ZONES: Going fuzzy: NY drops exams for ‘portrait of a graduate.’ “Starting with the class of ’28, New York high school students won’t have to pass Regents exams in English, math, science and social studies to earn a diploma, reports Alex Zimmerman on Chalkbeat. The Class of ’31 will have to meet ‘portrait of a graduate’ requirements.”
BACKUP: The ISS is nearing retirement, so why is NASA still gung-ho about Starliner?
NASA hopes commercial space stations can take over for the ISS after its retirement, but there’s no guarantee SpaceX will still be flying Dragon in the 2030s. This injects some uncertainty into plans for commercial space stations.
One possible scenario is that, sometime in the 2030s, the only options for transporting people to and from commercial space stations in low-Earth orbit could be Starliner and Starship. We’ll discuss the rationale for this scenario later in this story.
While the cost of a seat on SpaceX’s Dragon is well known, there’s low confidence in the price of a ticket to low-Earth orbit on Starliner or Starship. What’s more, some of the commercial outposts may be incompatible with Starship because of its enormous mass, which could overcome the ability of a relatively modest space station to control its orientation. NASA identified this as an issue with its Gateway mini-space station in development to fly in orbit around the Moon.
It’s impossible to predict when SpaceX will pull the plug on Dragon. The same goes with Boeing and Starliner. But NASA and other customers are interested in buying more Dragon flights.
Boeing is something like $2 billion in the red on Starliner, and it seems unlikely the company will ever sell enough flights to bring the program into the black.
Still, if NASA needs a backup plan and Boeing can claw back some of those losses, I suppose it makes sense.
MORE NUKES IS GOOD NUKES: Energy Independence: New Nuclear Reactors in the Works.
IS THERE ANYTHING IT CAN’T DO? Caffeine May Slow Cellular Aging By Activating A Protective Stress Response.
The study, published in Microbial Cell, discovered that caffeine induces a stress-like response in cells, activating a longevity pathway called AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK).
AMPK functions like a cellular fuel gauge. When energy runs low or during times of stress, AMPK activates, forcing cells to conserve resources, repair damage, and clean up faulty components by recycling parts of themselves.
In biology, too much stress harms cells, but small amounts can actually help them adapt and repair, preventing damage from piling up. Over time, this helps tissues stay healthier, which supports a longer lifespan.
“Our research, at least in terms of caffeine, suggests that AMPK gets turned on because caffeine is exerting some sort of stress on the cells,” Alao said.
Have at least two cups of coffee, just to be safe.
UM…:
BREAKING: Mel Witherspoon, the Democrat City Council President for Erie City, PA, just claimed he shot a man in the head when he was 17 and got away with it because of mafia ties and connections.
"I shot him in the head point blank… I stayed in jail one night, I never went to… pic.twitter.com/SCzrZRKTWb
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) July 17, 2025
IT’S GOOD TO BE THE NOMENKLATURA: Conflict of Interest? Ossoff Backed ESG Rules While His Wife Invested Heavily in ESG Funds.
CIVIL RIGHTS UPDATE: Don’t Look Now, But Another New Jersey Town Just Voted to Refund Their Carry Permit Fees. “State lawmakers set the high permit fee in an effort to discourage average citizens from applying for carry permits. We joined forces with our friends at NRA/ILA and NJFOS in an effort to provide relief, and we’re happy to say it’s beginning to work.”
YOUR OCCASIONAL REMINDER — IF ONE WAS NEEDED — THAT LEFTISM HAS NO INHERENT LIMITING PRINCIPLES:
What I find puzzling and interesting about NPR is the same thing, in miniature, that I find puzzling about liberalism in many contexts: the utter inability to impose limits on itself, even when the failure to do so is obviously self-destructive. If NPR had even pursued its…
— Adrian Vermeule (@Vermeullarmine) July 17, 2025
“Too much is never enough,” the wise man said.
Related (From Ed):
Liberalism rejects the very concept of limits on itself because that would negate its internal determinism and, more broadly, the telos itself. What we see as obvious self-destruction is, to them, victimization by opposing forces which, of course, are always wrong.
— S. Maria Shreve (@s_shreve1) July 17, 2025
WINNING: Trump Ends Boondoggle on Rails.
SMART ENOUGH TO KNOW WHEN IT’S OUTCLASSED BY AN 8-BIT CONSOLE FROM THE ’70S WITH 128 BYTES OF RAM: Google Gemini crumbles in the face of Atari Chess challenge — admits it would ‘struggle immensely’ against 1.19 MHz machine, says canceling the match most sensible course of action.
2026 PREVIEW: Trump says Texas redistricting plan could deliver 5 more GOP House seats.
President Donald Trump expressed confidence this week that Texas Republicans could gain as many as five additional seats in the US House of Representatives through a redistricting plan expected to be taken up during a special legislative session later this month.
“I think we’ll get five,” Trump told reporters, according to The Hill. “And there could be some other states we’re going to get another three, or four or five in addition. Texas would be the biggest one.”
Trump also noted that it would be “okay” if left-wing states like California or New York pursued redistricting plans of their own.
The president’s remarks follow Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s announcement that redistricting will be part of the upcoming special session. Abbott announced last week that the state will introduce “a revised congressional redistricting plan in light of constitutional concerns raised by the US Department of Justice.”
Although redistricting traditionally occurs every ten years, Trump’s team is reportedly encouraging Texas to redraw its maps sooner in order to expand the GOP’s House razor-thin majority ahead of the 2026 midterms.
Developing…
I’VE LAID IN EXTRA SUPPLIES OF “GOODER AND HARDER”: New York Elites Brace for the Inevitable: Mamdani as Mayor.
WE’RE RULED BY OVERGROWN CHILDREN:
🚨NEW: CBS News correspondent Scott MacFarlane tells Chuck Todd he got "PTSD" after Trump assassination attempt — *NOT* from the shooting, but because the crowd blamed the media🚨
"For those of us there, it was such a horror."
"I got diagnosed with PTSD within 48 hours. I got… pic.twitter.com/JYeA7FZ90G
— Jason Cohen 🇺🇸 (@JasonJournoDC) July 16, 2025
NICE CATCH: Exiled Yemen government claims to seize 750 tons of Iran-supplied Houthi weapons.
For years, the US Navy and other Western naval forces have seized Iranian arms being sent to the Houthis, who have held Yemen’s capital since 2014 and have been attacking ships in the Red Sea over the Israel-Hamas war.
The seizure announced Wednesday, however, marked the first major interdiction conducted by the National Resistance Force, a group of fighters allied to Tariq Saleh, a nephew of Yemen’s late strongman leader Ali Abdullah Saleh.
The Houthis and Iran did not immediately acknowledge the seizure, which the National Resistance Force said happened in late June.
Yesterday: Sirens sound in Dead Sea area following missile launched by Yemen’s Houthis.
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